S'lim #4 Tehran

Edited by Farbod Fakharzadeh

August 2017

nº4 Tehran

S’LIM

August 2017

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Tehran Looking at a City Through a Peephole Editorial Passing, Recording, Passing Mahsa Imani Tehran ghadim Babak Esmaeli & Ahmad Mousavi

Edited By Farbod Fakharzadeh

Tomorrow Sings Another Song Sana Ghobbeh Tehran on Wall Behnam Sadeghi A Few Unsound Urban Narratives Hadi Azari Azqandi Assembling the Resemblance Chow Yik Inner cover: The World by Aman Askarizad.

Looking at a City Through a Peephole Farbod Fakharzadeh

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Dear Reader, We’re very happy to introduce this fourth issue of S’lim, which marks the beginning of a special series of three guest edited slimzines - made possible with the support from the Finnish National Council for Architecture and Design. Through this development, we hope to approach some more places that have crossed our paths in the recent years, through the eyes of varied observers, in the small format familiarized by the first three issues of the zine.

For this “inaugural” edition, we have invited Helsinkibased artist and curator Farbod Fakharzadeh to collaborate with us, and offer a contemporary peek into the Iranian capital, a place changing rapidly, while becoming ever more visible in the global perspective.

Selim Projects

After being approached in order to compile this issue of S’lim, I kept wondering what would be a theme or approach that could properly accommodate Tehran – the city that lacks the charm and the history of the ancient Iranian cities. A place in the constant process of becoming, yet trapped in an endless moment stretched between tradition and modernity. An ever-expanding construction project (at parts with the most surreal and outlandish practical or aesthetic choices) that was never meant to be and would never be the massive giant it is today, hadn’t it been for the numerous attacks that destroyed Rey (a city to which Tehran was a suburban village), or the need for a new capital far from the enemies in the older southern cities for the newly established Qajar dynasty, among many others.

Still, somehow, Tehran came to be the megacity it is today. A city which in its own

bizarre way captures the soul of the Iranian society. “An often uneasy coexistence of old and new, of continuity and change”(1) among other paradoxes. Like any other bustling metropolis, Tehran has a lot on display for one to see and a ton of stories to tell. But that’s not a unique aspect of any city. Nor is its “chaotic jumble of concrete and crazy traffic blanketed by a miasma of air pollution.”(2) What makes Tehran stand out is a state, a form of being that part of its political history has brought about – the fact that it is one of the least exposed, least depicted, least traveled to and least talked about major metropolises in the world. The fact that no matter if it’s one’s first visit or you have lived in there all your life, the city possesses a latent possibility of surprising you each and every day.

In this issue, the effort has been focused on giving a more personal, detail-oriented and minimalistic view of the city through the experiences of living, staying and visiting by our contributors (and contemporaries). We have tried our best to stay true to the rather undisclosed and at parts concealed character of the city, thinking about creating a set of tiny traces and visual clues in order to build a consciously incomplete mental image which could be a starting point for further thought processes on and about Tehran. An approach similar to the experience of peeking at the details of a chaotic construction site, through a set of peepholes on the walls of a surrounding fence.

1. Encyclopædia Britannica, Tehran, Character of the city. https://www.britannica.com/place/ Tehran 2. Lonely planet, Introducing Tehran.https://www.lonelyplanet.com/iran/tehran

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Aman Askarizad. From series Night Passengers of Tehran.

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Passing, Recording, Passing Mahsa Imani

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Tehran ghadim Babak Esmaeli & Ahmad Mousavi

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Tomorrow Sings Another Song Sana Ghobbeh

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Tehran on Wall Behnam Sadeghi

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A Few Unsound Urban Narratives Hadi Azari Azqandi

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Assembling the Resemblance Chow Yik

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Contributors & Contemporaries

We would like to thank all the contemporaries who shared their contributions on ‫تهران‬‎.

S’LIM is a zine that focuses on a particular place at a

Aman Askarizad (b. 1986, Rasht) has a BA in Architecture and after working in the field of architecture, he switched his focus to photography and art. He has been studying an MA in Visual culture and contemporary art at Aalto university since 2016. (http://amanaskarizad.com)

time, merging the contemporary and the historical experiences of visiting, living, staying and theorizing.

ISSN 2343-1016 (online)

Mahsa Imani is a photographic artist born in Tehran, Iran in 1989.

She has a BA in Architecture. She has been studying and practicing photography since 2012. Her work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows.

ISSN 2343-1024 (print)

Babak Esmaeli is a freelance illustrator from Iran. During his graphic design bachelor degree, he discovered his passion for illustrating.

Besides being an illustrator, he’s done animation concepts and cartoons for Iranian magazines. (http://babakesmaeli.com)

editorial / curatorial / cultural / visual / spatial projects.

Ahmad Mousavi (b. 1984) holds an A.A. in graphic design and a B.A. in Animation from The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Broadcasting (IRIB) University. He’s currently working as the Art Manager of Iran Farda magazine. (http://sqwqo.com)

Produced by Selim, a Helsinki-based contemporary platform for

SELIM Selim Projects

Sana Ghobbeh (b. 1984, Tehran) visual artist and architect. In 2017 she accomplished the postgraduate program of a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies) in Brussels. She was granted an artistic research at Umeå School of Architecture (UMA) in Sweden 2013-2015. (http://www.sanaghobbeh.weebly.com)

Katajanokankatu 8 D 24

Behnam Sadeghi (b. 1983, Tehran) started taking picture as an amateur photographer in 2006 and since 2012 has been working in the field of photo based art. (http://behnamsadeghi.com)

info@selim.fi

Hadi Azari Azqandi (b. 1984, Mashhad) started photography as a hobby back in 2007, graduating with an MA in photography in 2011.

Since then he has been involved with photography theory and history as well as photography practice, pursuing some longtime projects on cityscapes and his daily life.

individual text and images is held by the respective contributors and authors.

Chow Yik (b. 1983) grew up in Hong Kong, practices as an artist and works as a curator. She has experimented with different forms of moving image, including filmmaking, video installation, new media art, etc. She flourishes her life long appreciation towards contemporary and emerging artistic practices, and understanding of the possibilities of art as a tool in social contexts and environments. (http://chowyik.com) Issue Guest Editor Farbod Fakharzadeh is an Iranian art worker currently based in Helsinki, Finland. His work usually takes place in an area in-between artistic practice and curatorial thought. Some of his interests are: history-politics, construction of power, memory of objects, absurdism and glitch.

00160 Helsinki, Finland http://www.selim.fi

© 2017 Selim Projects / Henrik Drufva and Mika Savela. The copyright on the

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission from the publisher, except for works existing in the public domain.

This issue has been generously supported by a grant from the National Council for Architecture and Design, Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

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